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Everything you need to know about satisfaction (or lack thereof) can be learned from my cats, Minnie and Maxx, the Yin and Yang of feline existentialism.

Minnie, jet black from head to tail, was clearly traumatized before I adopted her. She wanted nothing to do with people whatsoever and communicated that quite clearly. When I’d pick her up, she’d clench her entire body and then suddenly twist into the air and take off like a rocket at the first opportunity, leaving tracks of red slices on my arm or chest after using them as a launching pad for her back feet.

Consequently, I didn’t pick Minnie up much in the early days. I just left her alone and didn’t put any pressure on her. Four months later, she popped up on the footrest of my recliner, stared at me intently with her huge green eyes, and then delicately walked up my body, curled up on my chest, began purring and fell asleep. She’s been my Velcro kitty ever since, and has claimed me as her personal human. We’re each other’s familiar.

I like to describe Minnie as reclusive or sensitive or shy. My husband describes her as “psycho” and insists that she’d eat my face if she had to. Let’s not be judgmental, now. Who’s to say whose face we might eat if we had to survive? One can never truly be sure.

So, why on earth did I adopt a cat like Minnie, given that on that Petco Black Cat Adoption Day, there were scores of other choices, peering miserably from their cages and sliding their silken ebony paws through the grating as if beckoning and begging, “Please, pick me!!” As opposed to Minnie, curled in a ball in the back of her cage, trying to block out the world.

Well, the reason is that curled around that curled up black ball was a big, boisterous pure-white lovebug, licking Minnie furiously as if trying to comfort her. I called to get his attention and he came straight to me, rubbing his body back and forth on the grating, nibbling my finger affectionately, oozing love.

“I’d like to hold this one,” I told the rescue mom.

Once he was in my arms, there was just no way I was going home without that big purry squirmy ball of adorableness. I named him Maxx, (Cattus Maximus, of course) in contrast to Minnie (Cattus Minimus, and yes, I know that’s not a real word), because he overflows with personality. He makes facial expressions like a person, and is doing his best to speak English. He often calls “hello,” (it sounds like “herro”) when looking for someone, usually my hard-to-impress daughter, who he’s completely charmed.

One recent lazy “couch, coffee and cats” Sunday morning with my husband, Minnie was curled up in “her” lap (it used to be mine) and Maxx was perching on the back of the recliner, jumping onto the sofa arm, walking across the back, squirming around apparently unable to get comfortable, and then jumping down to go scratch at my daughter’s bedroom door and yowl “Herro” because he was displeased with the amount of time it was taking her to wake up, and I started analyzing the existential difference between Maxx and Minnie.

Yes. I’m about to anthropomorphize shamelessly.

Here is Minnie, never imagining she could be happy at all, let alone in the company of a human. Humans meant fear and pain. Except for one. Me. She is perfectly content to be bonded only to me, and makes zero attempt to interact with anyone else. She’s satisfied and grateful to have just this much. However, if she’d take the risk to interact with more humans, she’d reap an abundance of cuddles and strokes. But no. That’s just too risky for her. The luck of finding one loving human exceeds her wildest dreams and to seek more might ruin everything.

In other words, Minnie is content with “enough” — just enough, and not one bit more, whether it’s human attention or food. She’s a dainty little thing, all of about nine pounds and never overeats, satisfied with whatever food I give her.

And then there’s Maxx.

There’s NEVER enough for Maxx — food, water, attention, toys, playtime or even soft horizontal surfaces. He wants them all, and he wants them now. He’ll walk all the way across the house just to harass Minnie out of her warm, peaceful little spot, simply because he can’t stand for her to have something he doesn’t. And that goes for food too. If she starts to eat, he butts in and pushes her aside. Just because he can.

At the risk of cat-fat-shaming — Maxx is rotund. Joe calls him “Maxxie the Hut.”

At more than twice Minnie’s size, Maxx is immense both in bulk and personality. Everyone who comes to visit is drawn to him, perching on his cat tree and serving as the official welcoming committee. He chats them up, rolls around and flirts, and is simply irresistible. Minnie, on the other hand, greets visitors by streaking away to hide.

So, here’s that feline existential irony: Minnie seeks, and receives, relatively little in life, and is content. Maxx demands everything there is and usually gets it, but is restless and always wanting more. Even though he actually gets more than Minnie, he’s never content.

Some might call Minnie’s behavior “settling” — a dirty word in my book, one tick away from “giving up.” But maybe there’s happiness in settling? Is there satisfaction in not yearning for what might be beyond the horizon? Conversely, by perpetually chasing the horizon, we fail to realize that we can never really reach it. There’s always more.

Hmmm.

If you settle, you give up the search. You “get there.”

If you search, you give up settling. You never “get there.”

Which is the better strategy? I’m not quite sure. I’ve been both a settler and a searcher. I’ll let you know when I “get there.”

So, I get up this morning, and can’t find Maxx. Usually he’s crouched right at the bedroom door, sometimes with Minnie on his back. They’re working together to figure out how to turn the knob. This is ALWAYS where the both are in the morning, often making little mewing and trilling sounds under the crack of the door, and sliding their little paws underneath as if attempting to hook me and drag me out.

Maxx! MAXX! MAAAAAAX!!!Where are you?

Today… Minnie’s there, trilling, hooking, just like usual. No Maxx.

I look for him. Nothing.

Call him. Nothing.

I start to get a little worried. Maxx is a raucous, romping clown and gets into everything. Did he get into more than he could handle while I was asleep? Shit. Did he stick a claw or his nose into an electrical outlet and electrocute himself? Strangle himself? Eat something poisonous? WTF? Where the hell is he?

I wander around and call him some more, followed by Minnie, who is no help at all, and hear a faint crackling emanating from inside the recliner. I turn it over… there he is, way up in the reclining mechanism, WITH A BAG OVER HIS HEAD.

I drag him out and pull if off, and it’s all steamy and his fur is damp, and he looks drunk. And then he looks up at me with his eyes all spinny, like, “Oh, hey, it’s you. Nice to see you. Pet me a little, and give me something to eat.”

Have I mentioned Maxx is a male?

Anyway.

This isn’t the first time Maxx has been fascinated with plastic bags. Here he is, pretending to be an iKitty.

He sort of wobbles over to the kitchen like nothing’s up, and I’m standing there holding the bag… it’s small and very thick, and not anything I recognize. Where the hell he found this, I have no idea. Was it behind a couch somewhere and he stuck his head inside and panicked, and climbed inside the chair to hide from the bag over his head? (This strategy, of course, only makes sense to cats.)

Maybe it was up inside the recliner? Pushed down inside from when the grandkids were here? Maybe stuffed there by a factory worker who got busted for snacking while putting the chair together? Who knows??? But of course, wherever it came from, Maxx just HAD to stick his head inside. Because that’s just the kind of cat he is.

So, I give them their morning treat, and pretty soon they’re off and romping together, and I’m relieved that Maxx doesn’t seem to have suffered any brain damage from his near suffocation. And I also shudder a bit, because I’m glad he found that bag when I was at home, and not on a night when I was away. He’s a cute little clown. I’d like to keep him around awhile longer.